ALROSA – Page 8 – The Diamond Certification Laboratory of Australia (DCLA)

China backs Russia in opposing bid to redefine conflict diamonds

China has joined Russia in opposing an effort to redefine conflict diamonds to include those sold by individual nations, as a rift between Western and pro-Russia nations jeopardizes the process for certifying rough diamonds as conflict-free.

Ukraine, Australia, Britain, Canada, the European Union, the United States and civil society groups were pushing to place Russia on the agenda at this week’s Kimberley Process (KP) meeting in Botswana and to broaden the KP’s definition, under which only gems funding rebel movements are “conflict diamonds”.

Russia, the world’s biggest producer of diamonds, has said the situation in Ukraine has “no implications” for the Kimberley Process.

China agrees that the Ukraine issue falls outside the scope of the KP, the country representative told the meeting, according to three sources. China joins Belarus, Central African Republic, Kyrgyzstan and Mali in backing Russia’s stance within the body, which seems unlikely to come to any agreement.

“It’s clear that this is posing really an existential crisis for the Kimberley Process,” said Hans Merket, a researcher at Belgian non-governmental organisation IPIS, who is a member of the civil society group.

“It has become impossible to even discuss the KP’s problems and shortcomings, let alone that there would be any room for convergence on how they can be addressed.”

China’s KP representatives did not respond to an emailed request for comment.

The KP certification scheme, designed to eliminate the trade in so-called “blood diamonds”, was set up in 2003 after devastating civil wars in Angola, Sierra Leone, and Liberia, which were largely financed by the illicit diamond trade.

The Kimberley Process Civil Society Coalition and some member states have been arguing to broaden that definition for years, but it is difficult to do as the KP makes decisions by consensus.

Jacob Thamage of Botswana, the current KP chair, said that more participants now believe reform is needed.

Source: mining.com

De Beers rises small diamonds price amid shortage

De Beers, the world’s top diamond producer by value, has once again increased the price of its smaller stones as sanctions on Alrosa, its Russian rival, have worsened a global shortage caused by two years of covid-related shutdowns.

The Anglo American unit had hiked prices by about 8% at its first sale this year, with the sharpest increases of up to 20% affecting small-scale roughs, as demand reached pre-pandemic levels.

Prices for these diamonds, which usually end up clustered around the solitaire stone in a ring, have soared since early April, when Alrosa was targeted by US sanctions related to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Diamonds are one of Russia’s top ten non-energy exports by value, with shipments in 2021 totalling over $4.5 billion, and its state-owned diamond producer is responsible for about a third of global supply.

Unlike Alrosa, De Beers doesn’t produce much of diamonds used in lower-end jewellery usually found a chain stores such as Costco or Walmart which is creating increasing shortages as Alrosa’s ability to supply the market remains uncertain.

People familiar with the matter told Bloomberg that De Beers applied a 5% to 7% price increase this week in Botswana, where the company holds 10 sales each year in events known as sights.

Around 60 handpicked customers known as sightholders are given a black and yellow box each time. These contain plastic bags filled with stones, with the number of boxes and quality of diamonds depending on what the buyer and De Beers had agreed to in an annual allocation.

De Beers rises small diamonds price amid shortage
Prices for small rough diamonds, the type that would end up clustered around the solitaire stone in a ring, are climbing.

*Prices for small rough diamonds are climbing.*

The miner increased the price of its rough diamonds throughout much of 2021 as it sought to recover from the first year of the pandemic when the industry came to a near halt.

The strategy, which applied to stones bigger than 1 carat, granted De Beers a steady recovery during the year, with prices gaining 23% in just over a year, parent company Anglo American said in a December presentation.

De Beers now only carries working inventory stocks and its mines are running at full tilt. There is little chance of material increases in supply before 2024, when a $2 billion underground expansion of its Venetia mine in South Africa is expected to be completed.

The diamond jewelry industry is going into the year with diamond supply at historically low levels, estimated by Bain & Company at 29 million carats in 2021. “Upstream inventories declined ~40%, driven by high demand and slow production recovery, and are near the minimal technical level,” the report stated.

Source: mining.com

All GIA Reports to Be Digital by 2025

The Gemological Institute of America (GIA) plans to convert all of its paper reports to digital within the next three years, beginning with its Diamond Dossier in 2023.

The digital reports, which it will link to an app, will be more secure than their paper counterparts, the GIA said Tuesday. They will be paired with a new inscription-matching service, called GIA Match iD. This feature captures a diamond’s inscription image and links the stone to its GIA report using artificial intelligence (AI).

As each report category is introduced in digital form, the printed reports will be discontinued, the GIA told Rapaport News. However, some specialty services, such as the Monograph reports and notable letters, will continue to be available in printed versions.

“Digital reports…build on our decades of innovation and move our consumer protection mission forward,” said GIA CEO Susan Jacques. “This important transformation allows GIA to offer consumers a truly modern and engaging experience while helping our industry progress toward a more sustainable future.”

Starting in January 2023, the new Diamond Dossier service will offer a fully digital report, including the 4Cs; the app, which enables retailers and consumers to view, save and share information for their diamonds; and the Match iD instrument.

The elimination of GIA paper reports will save 20 tons of paper and 18.5 tons of plastic each year, the GIA said. It will also reduce transportation-related carbon emissions, the institute added.

Source: Diamonds.net

US Demand, Uncertain Supply Buoy Diamond Prices

Diamond trading was stable in May despite concerns about inflation, rising interest rates and slumping stock markets. Polished prices initially declined but later steadied as dealers anticipated supply shortages resulting from Russian sanctions.

The RapNet Diamond Index (RAPI™) for 1-carat diamonds slid 0.5% in May but was 9.3% higher on June 1 than at the beginning of the year.

RapNet Diamond Index (RAPI™)
	May	Year to date Jan. 1 to June 1	Year on year June 1, 2020, to June 1 2021
RAPI 0.30 ct.	0.6%	1.3%	-0.1%
RAPI 0.50 ct.	-0.3%	5.8%	8.2%
RAPI 1 ct.	-0.5%	9.3%	22.1%
RAPI 3 ct.	-0.3%	10.6%	25.7%

US demand is supporting the market even as economic uncertainty sets in. Expectations are rising for the Las Vegas shows, which begin June 8. Dealers hope the positive sentiment will boost trading in the second half of the year. Chinese wholesalers remain cautious as activity resumes after the country’s Covid-19 lockdowns.

Inventory levels are high but have decreased in select categories. The number of diamonds on RapNet stood at 1.8 million as of June 1, up 43% from a year earlier. The quantity of 0.30-carat, D- to H-color, IF- to VS-clarity goods fell 14% in May; 0.50-carat diamonds in the same range declined 11%. Both categories were still significantly above last year’s levels.

While the sanctions on Russian goods have not yet caused notable polished scarcities, shortages are likely in the coming months. Rough supply has dropped since Alrosa canceled its March and April sales. Prices at rough auctions have increased — particularly in the small-diamond category, which Alrosa dominates. De Beers raised prices of small rough at its latest sight from June 6 to 10.

The market is splitting into two segments: Russian and non-Russian goods. Some big cutters are finding ways to buy Alrosa rough in order to serve centers that remain open to buying Russian-origin polished. These diamonds will likely sell at a discount to non-sanctioned ones.

US and European jewelers and brands may have difficulty filling their sourcing requirements in the coming months without Russian supply. This will lend further support to diamond prices.

Source: Diamonds.net

Gem Diamonds unearths 125-carat diamond in Lesotho

Africa-focused Gem Diamonds has found a 125 carat rough stone at its Letšeng mine in Lesotho, the miner’s second rock over 100 carats mined this year.

The company, known for the recovery of large, high quality stones in 2020, has seen output of high quality diamonds surpassing the 100 carat mark become less frequent over the past year.

In 2021, Gem Diamonds found only six of such diamonds at Letšeng, compared to the 16 it discovered in 2020.

The find comes as prices for small diamonds have jumped about 20% since the start of March, as cutters, polishers and traders struggle to source stones outside Russia.

State owned Russian miner Alrosa, the world’s top diamond producer by output, was hit with US sanctions following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

Higher prices for lower end stones are good news for miners, but not a game changer, experts say. While every mine is different, a general rule is that 20% of production the best stones account for about 80% of profits.

Since acquiring Letšeng in 2006, the company has found more than 60 white gem quality diamonds over 100 carats each, with 16 of them recovered last year. At an average elevation of 3,100 metres (10,000 feet) above sea level, Letšeng is also one of the world’s highest diamond mines.

Source: mining.com

Botswana sees Russian diamond ban opening door to synthetic gems

*Mirny, Sakha Republic, Russian Rough Dimaonds*

Botswana, Africa’s top diamond producer, sees a prolonged ban on Russian diamonds opening the way for synthetic gems to expand market share, the country’s minister told a mining conference on Monday.

The United States, the world’s largest market for natural diamonds, imposed sanctions on Russia’s state-controlled Alrosa in April, aiming to cut off a source of revenue for Moscow after its February invasion of Ukraine.

Alrosa, the world’s largest producer of rough diamonds, accounted for about 30% of global output in 2021.

Botswana’s Minister of Minerals and Energy Lefoko Moagi said the ban on Russia diamonds might push prices up to the benefit of rival producers but he also said the gap would be hard to fill.

“We see the 30% gap that will be left by the ban being plugged by something else that is not natural. And for us that will be a challenge,” he said.

Jacob Thamage, head of Botswana’s Diamond Hub, said uncertainty over the Ukraine conflict makes it difficult for Botswana and other natural diamond miners to fill the supply gap as ramping up operations requires significant investment.

“You don’t want to invest a lot of money to up-scale and then the war ends the next day,” Thamage said. “We also see the higher prices pushing consumers to substitutes such as the synthetics and this can cause problems for us if we cede the market to unnatural stones.”

Sales at Debswana, a joint venture between Anglo American unit De Beers and Botswana’s government, accounts for almost all of Botswana diamonds exports. These stood at $3.466 billion in 2021 compared with $2.120 billion in 2020.

Thamage also fears that consumers might start to shun natural diamonds due to traceability issues.

“There is an increased fear that buyers of diamonds will begin to treat all natural diamonds as conflict diamonds and therefore shift to unnatural diamonds,” he said.

Source: mining.com

Diamond prices are spiking and even De Beers can’t fill the gap

*Alrosa canceled its last sale in April and is unlikely to sell any large volumes again this month*

Prices are surging in some corners of the rough-diamond market, as sanctions on one of the world’s two giant miners ripple through the supply chain. In the past, the industry could turn to behemoth De Beers to crank out extra gems when supply ran tight — but not this time.

The price of a small rough diamond, the type that would end up clustered around the solitaire stone in a ring, has jumped about 20% since the start of March, according to people familiar with the matter. The reason: Diamond cutters, polishers and traders are struggling to source stones after the US levied sanctions on De Beers’s Russian rival, Alrosa PJSC, which accounts for about a third of global production.

For most of the modern history of diamonds, this is the sort of situation where De Beers could have tapped its vast stockpiles or simply fired up latent mining capacity. Little more than 20 years ago, its safes in London held stocks of diamonds worth perhaps as much as $5 billion.

Those days are now long gone. The company only carries working inventory stocks and its mines are running at full tilt. There is little chance of material increases in supply before 2024, when an expansion at its flagship South African mine will be completed.

“It’s very difficult to see us bringing on any new production,” Chief Executive Officer Bruce Cleaver said in an interview in Cape Town. “Thirty percent of supply being removed isn’t sustainable.”

De Beers also produces relatively few of the type of diamonds Alrosa specializes in: the small and cheap gems that surround a larger center-point stone or are used in lower-end jewelry sold in places like Walmart or Costco.

For many in the sector, that means growing shortages unless Alrosa and its trade buyers can find a work around.

Alrosa canceled its last sale in April and is unlikely to sell any large volumes again this month, the people said. It’s uncertain when the company will be able to sell normally again, they said, even as the company, banks and buyers look for solutions.

Source: mining.com

Gem Diamonds’ Revenue Rises in Q1 2022

Gem Diamonds’ revenue in Q1 2022 (ending March 2022) has gone up 4% quarter-on-quarter and 19% year-on-year to $52.1 million, IDEX Online reports.

The miner, which owns 70% of the Letseng mine in Lesotho, sold 28,461 carats during the quarter – a rise when compared to the 24,790 carats it sold in the previous quarter. However, prices fell from $2,018 to $1,831, according to the report.

Clifford Elphick, Gem Diamonds’ CEO, said: “We remain confident about the outlook for diamond prices, particularly for Letseng’s large high-value diamonds with an average price of $1,831 per carat achieved during the period. Prices achieved on a like-for-like basis continued the largely upward trend from 2021.”

Source: israelidiamond.co.il

Star Diamond confirms Type IIa high value diamonds at Orion North, Taurus kimberlites

Star Diamond has completed a study into the abundance of Type IIa diamonds in parcels recovered from the Early Joli Fou geological units at the Orion North (K120, K147 and K148) and Taurus kimberlites (K118, K122 and K150).

The pipes are located within the Fort a la Corne diamond district of central Saskatchewan, including the Star–Orion South diamond project, on properties held in a joint venture with Rio Tinto Exploration Canada.

These diamond parcels were recovered by Star Diamond between 2006 and 2008 from 120-cm diameter drilling programs. The latest study confirms that unusually high proportions of Type IIa diamonds are present in both the Orion North and Taurus kimberlites.

Of particular note is the high proportion of Type IIa diamonds in the Orion North 147-148 EJF (52%), of which 66% of the 24 stones, 0.66 carats and above are Type IIa. The largest Type IIa diamond identified was a 6.88-carat stone from Orion North (K147-K148 EJF).

Senior technical advisor George Read said that the Type IIa diamonds at Orion North and Taurus are top white in colour, Type IIa diamonds are rare and account for less than 2% of all natural rough diamonds mined from kimberlites. Many high-value, top colour, large specials (greater than 10.8 carats) are Type IIa diamonds, which include all 10 of the largest known rough diamonds recovered worldwide.

The study also confirms and augments an earlier study of Type IIa diamonds being present in the Fort a la Corne kimberlites with Star (26.5%) and Orion South (12.5%).

A target for further exploration completed by Star Diamond in 2014 estimated that between 881 million and 1.04 billion tonnes of the major EJF units, containing between 46 and 79 million carats, occur within the Orion North and Taurus kimberlite clusters.

Orion North (K147, K148 and K220) alone is estimated to contain between 340 million and 410 million tonnes of EJF kimberlite with an estimated range of grade of 2.75 to 8.37 carats per hundred tonnes.

Source: mining.com

Russia says it may buy diamonds from sanctions-hit Alrosa

Russia may buy an as yet undetermined amount of rough diamonds from sanctions-hit producer Alrosa through its state precious metals and gems repository Gokhran, the country’s Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said on Wednesday.

The United States imposed sanctions on state-controlled Alrosa in April, complicating the Russian company’s operations in the global diamond market, with the aim of cutting off a source of revenue for Russia.

“We do not rule out the possibility of Gokhran purchasing diamonds produced by Alrosa. The amount will be determined later,” Siluanov told reporters.

Gokhran is generally more focused on purchases of precious metals from Russian domestic producers than diamonds, he added.

Alrosa, the world’s largest producer of rough diamonds, was behind about 30% of global output in 2021 and competes with Anglo American unit De Beers.

Its sales, mainly to Belgium, India and the United Arab Emirates, totalled $4.2 billion in 2021.

Gokhran bought diamonds worth $1 billion from Alrosa during years of weak demand caused by the global financial crisis.

Source: Reuters